


Whatever Walked There, Walked Together

by samsung



Category: The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, ghosts get hunted, nell lives, relationships get repaired, their powers are Stronger
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27219457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samsung/pseuds/samsung
Summary: "It’s twenty-four hours with her brother, Nell reminds herself. It couldn’t be worse than things already were."-Ghost Hunters AU where Nell goes with Steven to a haunted motel for writing inspiration, and they realize that the Crain family sensitivities may have a use after all.
Comments: 31
Kudos: 58





	1. The Relinquishment of Logic (Prologue)

**Author's Note:**

> “She had never driven far alone before. The notion of dividing her lovely journey into miles and hours was silly; she saw it [...] as a passage of moments, each one new, carrying her along with them, taking her down a path of incredible novelty to a new place. The journey itself was her positive action, her destination vague, perhaps nonexistent. [...] Or she might never leave the road at all, but just hurry on and on until the wheels of the car were worn to nothing and she had come to the end of the world.”  
> \- Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Nell has felt the House pulling at her every day since she left it, like some piece of her was taken away that night, some part of her that wasn't ready to leave. Perhaps she was separated from her mother too young, like those kittens in the box she can barely remember on the floor of her sister's room. Perhaps the Bent-Neck Lady had grown attached to Nell, missed her on some level, was pulling her back with an invisible rope tied around Nell that no one else could feel. Nell has been looking for a handle to hold on to for twenty-six years to stop the constant pull, had found it briefly in Arthur, but now found herself losing every foothold she'd ever made, her hands and feet grabbing at smooth walls as she slid back towards the welcoming cold embrace of the House and all it offered.

Red lights bore into her eyes as she stares at her alarm clock, contemplating. It’s not like she needs the alarm - she’s always awake well before it would have gone off, and it's a Friday night anyway - or, Saturday now. Regardless, it’s 3:03 in the morning, and she hasn’t slept yet. After waking up petrified last night, face to face with the Bent-Neck Lady for the umpteenth time, she doesn’t want to risk it again. Can’t. Not tonight.

So she lays and watches the clock, the colon between the numbers flashing at her lazily, as if it’s blinking, wondering why she’s still awake. 3:04. Blink. Blink. Blink.

After an hour or so, both the Bent-Neck Lady and sleep continue to evade her, and, deciding to accept the sleepless night rather than challenge it, Nell gets out of bed and slips into her sneakers, swiping her car keys from atop the dresser and making her way outside. Arthur used to go for late night drives sometimes when either of them couldn't sleep, and feeling the dusky breeze on her face can almost for a second trick her mind into thinking he's there in the passenger seat. She remembers how he'd make her laugh, making up stories about the buildings they passed, and carrying her back into bed when they returned home, too tired to travel any further and now content enough to sleep through the night.

She forces the thought out of her head as her chest clenches with the freshly opened wound of grief.

She drives without aim on these late night voyages, letting her mind wander as her hands and feet guide her through the Los Angeles streets on autopilot, hardly paying attention to the surroundings she passes. She's half convinced one night she'll come out of one of these thought journeys and look up to find herself in front of Hill House, the manor looming above her as though she had never left it.

She tries to push the House out of her mind, but her efforts are getting weaker by the day.

She keeps driving.

Her thoughts turn, as they so often do, to her family. Luke has been in his newest rehab center for about… is it two months now? He's been doing good, better than ever before. They haven't spoken on the phone for about a week, but in good times like these, they don't need to. The link between them is as strong as when they were kids, and even now she can feel the quiet peacefulness that means he's asleep. Safe, and asleep. A novelty, for Luke, and the edges of a smile, almost foreign now on her face, dance around her lips.

Theo… the smile fades as quickly as it had risen. She hasn't spoken to Theo in awhile, far too long, but how can she blame her for the silence after what Nell had asked her to do? Nell barely regrets trying - would probably do it again in a heartbeat for the slightest chance at gaining even one more interaction with Arthur - but knows the toll it would have taken on Theo had it worked. It was selfish to ask, but for once Nell was not selfless enough to have stopped herself.

She thinks of it every time she passes over Theo's name in her phone, her thumb poised over the button to dial, never able to bring herself to do it. She wonders if Theo will ever forgive her.

Nell's mind works its way up the family like rungs of a ladder, the familiarity of the order a constant comfort to her, not unlike Luke's fondness for counting to seven. Her mind reaches for the next rung up, her eldest sister, Shirley. A force of consistency, Shirley has barely changed since they were kids, which Nell finds comfort in more often than she'd like to admit. She wishes Shirley would listen to her more instead of brushing her off, wishes her older siblings could understand how much she was affected by the House, by Luke, by everything, really. But Shirley is someone to call, someone who will answer the phone, and Nell has far too few of those these days.

Steven is one of the few other calls she can make, despite their differences. They're the farthest apart in age and farthest apart in worldview, and she doesn't think he'll ever understand her fully, but he's been by her side for far too many nightmares for her to think he doesn't care, both as children and adults. The nightmares never really stopped with Nell, plagued her even during the day, and Steve, for all his flaws, was incapable of seeing his siblings in pain and doing nothing about it. Some sort of big brother instinct, she figured, that was nevertheless far too often decidedly absent whenever she had tried to discuss the House.

Yet, while Steve sometimes felt the farthest from her in her mind, he was the closest to her physically, and this is brought to her attention as she finds herself stopped in his driveway. She doesn't remember deciding to come here and hadn't noticed where she was heading, but she looks up at his house despite it, and, belatedly, realizes his car isn't even in the driveway.

He must be working, she figures, but something feels off about it anyway and she finds herself with her phone in her hand to call him, her short contacts list lighting up her screen as it so often does. While she debates this, her eye catches on the clock displayed at the top of the screen - 5:37 - and decides that calling him at this hour is definitely a bad idea. Though her brain decides this firmly, her thumb disagrees and slips against the dial button next to his contact, and her phone begins to ring.

"Shit," she whispers, staring at it. She debates hanging up, then figures a voicemail will be better than a missed call for him to wake up to in the morning. She knows she causes her family worry, and doesn't want to add to it when she can help it.

On the fourth ring, as she's planning out what to say in the voicemail, she's shocked to hear his voice as he answers. 

"Nell?"

"Oh," she says, unprepared. "Hi, Steve, sorry. This was kind of an accidental call."

Maybe there's something in the tone of her voice, or maybe there's just something in all of their genes that can feel when someone isn't alright, or maybe her eldest brother is just perpetually irritating, but Steven ignores her explanation and presses on with questions. "Jesus, it's five in the morning, Nell, are you okay?"

"Yeah," she insists, unsure who she's trying to convince. "I just… I'm worried about Luke," she says, unsure why those are the words that her mouth chooses. "And I'm at your house but your car isn't here and I was going to call and see where you were but then I realized what time it was, and I'm sorry to wake you, I really didn't mean to call."

There's a slight pause as he processes, and she hears a sigh. "You're at…?" Another sigh. "I'm not… I'm not really living there, at the moment."

Nell puzzles over this. "You're not living at your house?"

"For the moment, yeah, Leigh and I are… we're taking a break."

Nell sits up straighter, welcoming the distraction as the House fades from her mind for the moment. "What? What happened?!"

"I'd really rather not get into it over the phone."

"Well, are you nearby?" Nell asks, forgetting the time again.

"Nell, I'm… it's five-thirty in the morning, and I'm packing right now. I have to be at this place by ten and it's a long drive. Can we talk about this later? Another time?"

Nell should've known she'd be brushed off, but is a little hurt nonetheless. "Work?"

"Yeah," he says, and, verbose despite himself, continues explaining. "I'm staying in this supposedly haunted motel overnight, and I have to meet the owners beforehand."

Supposedly. The word choice irks her, more so due to the fact that it’s Steven, ever particular about his vocabulary and which words he chooses to use. Even now, he has to make it clear that he doesn’t believe in what he’s writing, doesn’t believe in what his siblings experienced.

Nell isn’t sure what prompts her to ask, isn’t even sure if she wants him to say yes, but logic abandons her and the words come out anyway. “Can I come with you?”

“You…?” Steven’s confusion is tangible in the phone static. “You want to drive four hours with me to sit in an abandoned haunted motel overnight and then drive back?”

He’s challenging her, but not saying no, so she decides to press on. If nothing else, this will allow her twenty-four hours of not being alone, and she could use that right now more than she cares to admit. “Yeah,” she says. “I like car rides.”

Surprisingly, Steven concedes. “Alright,” he says. “I’ll text you my address, but I want to leave by six so don’t dawdle.”

“Okay,” Nell agrees. “See you then.”

She hangs up the phone, uncertainty falling back into place, as though some spark of life had been present for the conversation and left as soon as the phone screen turned off, leaving her back in the darkness with just her thoughts again.

Her phone buzzes with a text, the address, and she finds herself punching it into Google Maps despite herself. It’s twenty-four hours with her brother, Nell reminds herself. 

It couldn’t be worse than things already were.


	2. Absolute Reality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We have grown to trust blindly in our senses of balance and reason, and I can see where the mind might fight wildly to preserve its own familiar stable patterns against all evidence that it was leaning sideways.”  
> \- Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
> 
> Thank you to everyone who commented and left kudos on chapter 1!

Steven barely has to pack for his work trips anymore, he realizes, habitually casting his eyes around his bedroom for anything he might have missed. He’d barely unpacked, his apartment nearly as bare and empty as the day he’d moved in. The act of placing a couch in the living room or hanging a picture on the wall felt as though it would be as final as signing divorce papers. He wasn’t sure what he was hanging on to - he knew he’d been a terrible husband, knew he didn’t deserve to be forgiven, knew that there was nothing he could do to salvage the years of damage he’d done. But here he stands, in his empty apartment, feeling as though he is betraying himself and Leigh by actions as innocuous as keeping his clothes in the closet.

He’d picked the apartment almost randomly, wanting to be close to his home - his old home - but not too close as to cause any further injury. Close to Nell, and to Luke; close to the familiar places, close to his favorite coffee shop, since he couldn’t trust anywhere else to make it quite right. As far away as possible in the continental United States from Massachusetts.

Satisfied that nothing else in the room needed to be brought with him, he slides his laptop case into his bag and closes the zipper. His tools of the preternatural trade never left the bag - he’s never detected anything with them that required he remove them from their place - and he keeps basic toiletries in the bag as well, so the only things that are regularly removed are his laptop and iPad, and whichever combination of polos and sweaters he decides to bring along that day. There is comfort in the familiarity - on these scouting trips, he rarely even changes into pajamas for the night, feeling more secure with his shirt collar pressing on the back of his neck.

Not that he is ever nervous to stay in these “haunted” spaces overnight, that isn’t it. He’s certainly had more than his fair share of nights spent in locations deemed by others to be occupied by spirits of some kind. He wasn’t bothered by it when he was thirteen in Hill House, and isn’t bothered by it now. But there is always something, some kind of distinct uncomfort created by the inherent liminality of a place like that, a place he’d likely only stay in one night, a place that others feared. Steven is not a person likely to absorb the unfounded fears of others, but that type of anxiety and nescience is often tangible in the air anyway, weighing on it like thick humidity.

He glances down at his watch. It is 5:36 and he is already set to leave, but he had planned on leaving at six and it doesn’t feel right to set out early and disturb the day’s schedule. He resolves to wait until six, and sits down on the edge of his bed, pulling out his cell phone to pass the time.

As he turns it on, his phone vibrates in his hand, and his screen lights up that he is receiving a call from Nell.

Seriously, is his first thought, at this hour?

The phone calls from Nell never seemed to stop, his youngest sister always having a crisis at least once per week. Some were understandable - despite his English degree and ten published books, Steven had been unable to come up with any words that could possibly ease her pain after Arthur had passed, and the phone calls from Nell during that time were some of the hardest in his life, even when she wouldn’t admit that that was the reason for her calling. But there was a limit for how many calls he could handle about the dreams she’d had as a child, and he’d surpassed that limit long ago.

Still, he has twenty-three minutes to kill. He picks up. “Nell?”

“Oh,” comes her voice on the other end. “Hi, Steve, sorry. This was kind of an accidental call.”

He doesn’t believe that for a second. “Jesus, it’s five in the morning, Nell.” But, even apart from the digital artifacts affecting her voice, she sounds different, like she’s far away, and he quickly adds an, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she says, far too quickly. “I’m just… I’m worried about Luke.” Before Steven can question the randomness of that statement - Luke is in rehab, he’s doing fine for once - she’s continuing on, and he forgets about the first sentence by the time she’s done with the second. “And I’m at your house but your car isn’t here and I was going to call and see where you were but then I realized what time it was, and I’m sorry to wake you, I really didn’t mean to call.”

She says all of this fast, without breaks for breath, as if she isn’t thinking before speaking and instead just letting the words fall from her as they please. She’s at his house? “I’m not…” He really does not want to be having this conversation, doesn’t want to make the situation any more real than it was. “I’m not really living there, at the moment.”

Nell is silent for a minute, and Steven stares at the blank wall in front of him. “You’re not living at your house?”

Steve rolls his eyes despite knowing she couldn’t see him. “For the moment, yeah, Leigh and I are…” What were they? “We’re taking a break.”

“What?” Nell speaks immediately that time. “What happened?”

“I’d really rather not get into it on the phone,” Steve says tightly. Or at all.

“Well, are you nearby?”

“Nell, I’m…” He rubs his face with his free hand. “It's five-thirty in the morning, and I’m packing right now.” He ignores the fact that he is already packed and has nothing else to do. “I have to be at this place by ten and it’s a long drive. Can we talk about this later? Another time?”

“Work?” She sounds far away again.

“Yeah,” he says, and briefly explains his schedule for the day. He checks his watch again, but only two minutes have passed.

“Can I come with you?” Nell asks.

This was extremely unexpected. Steven had thought Nell had made it very clear, in public, that she didn’t approve of his writing, and he can’t possibly fathom why she would want to spend that much time with him doing something they so heavily disagreed on. “You want to drive four hours with me to sit in an abandoned haunted motel overnight and then drive back?” He doesn’t mention that he’ll be there to write, doesn’t want to create a conflict because, if he’s honest, he’s definitely intrigued by the idea. Maybe experiencing an uneventful night in a ‘haunted’ building will help Nell realize that Hill House was nothing more than the place where their mom died. A bad place, by association, but to most people, just a place.

“Yeah,” she says. “I like car rides.”

Like Steve, she doesn’t bring up the ghosts or the books, and he’s feeling a bit hopeful about taking the trip together. Maybe this could help her, in some way. “Alright,” he says. “I’ll text you my address, but I want to leave by six so don’t dawdle.”

He doesn’t expect that she will, and sure enough she hangs up immediately upon agreeing, as if she expected he would change his mind if she waited any longer. He sends off a text with his location, and looks back at the blank wall, processing.

Why does Nell want to come?

He isn’t exactly sure when the last time they’d spent the day together like this was. On second thought, he isn’t sure the two of them had ever spent a day together at all without any of the others with them. When he’d left for college, Nell had only been ten years old, and she and Luke were inseparable for nearly all of their childhoods. He remembers times he took the twins to the movies or to the mall, always together, as a unit. And as adults, the Crain siblings had broken off from each other a little as they left home and grew apart, though they certainly had seen each other more often when they’d all been living in the same state. Still, their gatherings had been mostly confined to birthdays and holidays, meeting as a group. And then, of course, Luke went to rehab and Steven wrote the Hill House book and half of them moved away, and birthdays and holidays often just became phone calls. The family hadn’t really gone separate ways - they’d gone in two ways, with the twins following Steve to L.A. and Theo moving in with Shirley. His, Shirley’s, and Theo’s work schedules rarely matched up to allow everyone to get together without a reason. Nell’s wedding, he thinks, must have been the last time they were all together. Belatedly, he corrects himself: maybe it was Arthur’s funeral.

And now here they are, mostly only speaking when Nell or Luke have an issue, and otherwise nearly completely separate. He’s fairly sure Theo and Nell aren’t even on speaking terms, though he still isn’t entirely clear on why, though Theo is barely on speaking terms with anyone aside from Shirley anyway. She had visited every few months to spend time with Nell, and maybe Steven if he wasn’t busy, but since having some kind of falling out with Nell over a month ago, she had withdrawn even further into noncommunication. 

Fractured, mentally ill, full of unhealthy coping mechanisms and brick walls between them. Nothing ever changed.

Except, hopefully, for today. As he thinks this, there is a knock on the apartment door, and he rises to greet Nell. 

…

The trip is quiet, especially for the first two hours; they stop for caffeine fairly quickly and both are content to watch the sun rise over the Golden State Freeway in silence. They stop once, getting bagels at a Starbucks in Delano off Highway 99, and the conversation picks up slightly after that, fragments of sentences said here and there with no real need for reply, KROQ playing quietly from the stereo to fill the gaps. Steven finds himself thinking about how fragile Nell looks, more so with each passing month since Arthur passed, sometimes looking so distant and hollow that it almost seems like she could float away. He remembers how solid and happy she had seemed two years ago when they’d danced together at her wedding, still a little jumpy but so much more Nell than she had been in years, and now the person in the passenger seat feels nearly unrecognizable at times. 

“We’ll be there in about ten minutes,” he says finally, the second the ETA on his phone switches from 11 to 10, having been waiting for it so that he could have something new to say.

“Okay,” she says.

“I’ve already spoken to the owners at length about the place,” he continues, despite her lackluster reply, “so I don’t need to do as much of an interview as I usually do. I like to record what they say to keep my reports accurate to the spirit of the original stories,” he explains. He’s unsure if she cares about his writing process, but he doesn’t even know why she wanted to come along, so he figures he’ll fill her in on the day’s schedule. “I’ve already recorded conversations with them, though, so once they let us in and go over things, I’ll probably go around to some local places and ask if anyone has heard anything about the place. Locals can have the most fascinating stories.” He doesn’t believe in ghosts, but finds something utterly intriguing in the way a story alone can take a place, a family, a whole town even, and twist them around to the story’s bidding until the tale has become a living being on its own, as tangible as the people sharing it.

“Then we can come back and set up for the night,” he continues. “You can help set up equipment if you’d like. Or you can pick a spot to get dinner. Or whatever you want to do.” He glances over at her, but she’s given no indication that she wants to do anything. He wonders if she regrets asking to come along, and debates asking, but decides that that would be too confrontational before 10 a.m. He wants to have a good day, wants to give Nell a good day. It’s certainly been far too long since she’s had one.

They pull up to the motel shortly after. It reminds Steven slightly of the motel they’d stayed at on that night in 1992, and he almost asks Nell if she sees the similarities too, but thinks better of it. He’s not even sure if she remembers it - she was only six, after all - but if she does, best not to fill her head with ghosts before the day has even properly begun.

The owners - Eugene Hirsch and his wife Helen - are waiting outside, even though Steven and Nell are a little early. He figures that they must be too uncomfortable inside the lobby or the rooms, their heads plagued with those powerful stories and dreams.

“Steven,” Eugene says, extending a hand and walking towards them as soon as Steve opens his car door. “Great to meet you in person.”

“Likewise,” Steven says congenially. “I hope you don’t mind - I brought my sister, Nell, along with me for the night.” He would have asked in advance, but knows that anyone who’s read his books is likely dying to catch a glimpse of Nell in person.

“Don’t mind at all,” says Eugene, and as predicted, both he and Helen immediately fixate on Nell as she gets out of the car and makes her way around to them, as if they are expecting to see her followed by ghosts. “How are you, Nell?”

Nell smiles slightly, without it reaching her eyes. “I’m good,” she says. “Thanks.”

“I’d love to sit down with you both and ask some questions about that Hill House,” says Eugene. “Over lunch, maybe?”

“Oh, we just ate,” Steven says quickly, forcing politeness into his tone. “And we’d both prefer to put the House behind us, if it’s all the same to you.” He, of course, only speaks for himself - Nell seemed to live with the House firmly in front of her at all times. Still, he’s been aggressively fielding invasive questions about his childhood and family for six years, and doubts Nell wants to have the same experience.

“Sure, sure,” says the other man agreeably, but the silent Helen continues to watch Nell with curiosity and something akin to awe. “Here’s the master key, which will get you into all the rooms.” He hands it over. “I assume you’ll be staying in number 6, but can’t hurt to look around some more. And here’s some documents including a map and some accounts of what happened, though I’ve sent all this to you through email already. We live about fifteen minutes out, so it’s no trouble to let us know if you need anything or have any questions.”

“Thank you,” Steve says. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

“For your sakes, I hope so,” Helen speaks up finally, her voice low and quiet, her piercing eyes meeting Steven’s for a moment before turning back to Nell. “Especially on this day.”

“We’ll be fine,” Steven says again. “Thank you both for everything, we’ll be sure to check in with you if we have any questions.”

The group shakes hands again, and the Hirsches hurry off, likely not wanting to stay on the property for much longer than they have to. He forces memories of the Dudleys out of his mind and turns to Nell as their car exits the lot.

“So,” he says. “Want to settle in first, or try to find some stories from the locals?”

“It’s loud here,” Nell says, not answering the question.

Steven strains to hear anything outside of the occasional car on the road, then gives up and dismisses it. “Let me make sure the key works and put my bag inside, then we can head back out,” he decides, opening the back door of the car and slinging it over his shoulder, making his way to the door labeled with a 6.

“What did she mean?” Nell asks, following him. “The lady, when she said ‘especially on this day’?”

“Oh,” Steven says, turning over the key in his hand to fit the lock. “It’s the sixteen year anniversary of the day the motel experienced its first death. Sixteen years, in room six.” As the key clicks into place, he turns to her and shrugs, pushing the door open with his shoulder. “Numbers come up frequently in superstitions.”

“It’s first death?” Nell asks, following him into the room and standing close to the door.

“There’s been three,” Steve replied. “All in this very room.” He says it with a smile, trying not to create unwarranted tension. He glances around the room as he talks, making note of the two beds, the bathroom at the other side, and the bare furniture. “The first one, Lucy Willis…” He touches the bed closest to the door. “She died in bed here. She was poisoned, actually, there was cyanide found in her system, and the official cause of death was choking on her own vomit during a seizure. The police were never able to figure out who did it, or if it was self-inflicted. It was days before they found her, and her only living relatives were her son, Michael, and his wife, Hannah, but the police couldn’t find anything linking them definitively to Lucy’s death. A year later, Michael and Hannah stayed in this room for a night. They checked in under a fake name, and didn’t tell anyone where they were.”

He places his bag down on the closer bed and looks back at Nell. “They were both found dead two days later. Bruises on both of their necks consistent with strangulation, and, somehow, trace amounts of cyanide showed up on both tox screens. Authorities figured that they had killed Lucy and, driven mad with guilt, returned to the scene of her death to kill themselves, and considered both cases closed. Regardless, motel residents began reporting seeing and hearing unusual things after that - footsteps when no one else was around, lights flickering… Odd smells and apparitions. Two guests on separate occasions reported feeling pressure on their necks during the night, like someone was grabbing their throat. Room 6 was closed fairly quickly, but the experiences occurred throughout the motel, and pretty soon the only customers were curious teenagers and wannabe ghost hunters until they elected to close the place down a year ago.”

“Jesus,” Nell says quietly, staring at the bed by the door. “Are all of the places you investigate like this?”

“Most ghost stories originate with a violent or sudden death,” he answers. “Some places have had a lot more than three deaths on the premises. Some only have one.” He shrugs. “It varies.”

They let the story hang between them in silence for a bit, as if the air is absorbing it, until Steven clears his throat and gestures back at the door. “I’m sure we’ll encounter more ghost stories before the day is over,” he says. “Shall we?”

The two head back out to the car, closing and locking the door behind them.

…

Steven is not incorrect about the town residents - nearly every person he asks in the local diners and shops has some type of experience to recount about the place. Most of them had never set foot on the grounds and had only heard stories from other people, but a couple had stayed there themselves years ago, and eagerly tell Steven and his endlessly recording iPhone about disembodied footsteps, flickering lights, and unexplained chills.

Steven always listens quietly, allowing people to tell their own stories without input from him. He’ll have time for comments at the end, and doesn’t want to ask questions that could influence their memories. He chooses instead to make small notes in his notebook as they speak, jotting down things that stand out or things he wants to ask about later. A few people recognize his name or his face, and anyone who does immediately follows their recognition with questions for him and Nell about Hill House, which Steve fields with his usual thin patience.

He often can’t tell what Nell is thinking - she alternates between seeming to pay close attention and looking like she is zoned out, a million miles away from the present conversation. She’s so quiet sometimes that once, during a story, he even forgets that she’s there for a moment until he looks up and catches her reflection beside him in a mirror hanging on the shop’s wall.

At 6:00 p.m., Steven decides that he’s got enough stories to work with for now, and both of them are hungry and tired. Nell decides on pizza for dinner, and they pick up a pie on the way back to the motel, deciding to eat there in the quiet after so many hours of listening to people talk. They eat in silence as the sun sets, sitting on their respective beds - Steven had wordlessly claimed the one used by the late Lucy Willis - and after he’s finished his first slice, he decides to talk.

“So what’d you think?” he asks, reaching for the box to grab a second.

“About today?” Nell asks.

“Yeah.”

She stares at her own pizza slice for awhile before answering. “I wonder how many people believe them,” she says.

“Believe who?”

“The people we heard from today.” She looks up at Steven for a moment, and he’s surprised to see that she looks upset. “I wonder if their families believe them. If the stories are so widespread throughout the town, is it more acceptable to talk about them? Or do people talk about them behind their backs like they’re crazy, yet perfectly happy to share other people’s stories when a famous author comes to town.”

Steven tries to fight back his anger. He’s had this conversation way too many times, and is beginning to think he’ll never stop having it. “If people don’t believe them, it’s probably because they don’t have any proof,” he says.

“But if so many other people have had the same experience,” Nell says, her voice tense, “surely there’s a good chance that they’re all telling the truth.”

“The mind is a funny thing,” Steven says tightly. “What one person says can influence the thoughts of others subconsciously and make them think they see or hear things that they didn’t. It’s well-documented.”

“Yeah, well, thanks to you my childhood is well-documented too, and yet you still don’t even believe me.”

“Well maybe you shouldn’t have come today, then,” Steven says, tired of everyone bringing up the fucking book, abandoning his pizza and standing up to unpack his equipment, his hands needing something to do.

“Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have,” she says. “I guess I just thought I could spend one day with my brother without him insinuating that I’m crazy.”

“I’m not insinuating anything-”

“And you only stay here one night,” she continues. “Have you ever thought about that? All of these people saw things on all different days, yet you stay somewhere and think you know better than anyone else. Just because you don’t have some sort of supernatural experience in one night suddenly means that everyone else in the world is crazy, right, Steve?”

“So, what, you think I’m not giving the ghosts enough of a chance?!” He scoffs.

“I think you’re not giving me a chance!” Nell says loudly back.

Steven drops the bag back onto the bed, angry now. “I’ve given you thousands of chances, Nellie! I’ve given you twenty-six years of chances to realize that the nightmares you had when you were a child were just nightmares, yet you insist on constantly causing yourself to suffer because of them! I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Maybe,” she says quietly. “Maybe I just want to know what it feels like to have someone believe me.”

Before he can reply, she speaks again. “I’m tired, I’m just going to go to bed.”

Steven is equally ready for this day to be over, so he says nothing as she moves the pizza box to the bedside table and lays down, rolling over to face the opposite wall.

Fine, he thinks angrily. God forbid anyone ever tell Nell something she doesn’t want to hear.

He unpacks his equipment quickly, ready to be in bed himself. He sets up his thermal imaging camera in the corner so that it catches the whole room, and connects it to his laptop on a nearby dresser. An infrared thermometer goes on the table next to it, and he sets up the computer to record audio of the room as well. Satisfied that it’ll all be for nothing anyway, he clicks off the light by the door, leaving the bedside lamp as the only light source in the room, and climbs into his own bed, rolling over to stare at the ceiling.

He’ll never understand his family members’ refusal to see reason, their insistence upon living in fear of something that doesn’t even exist, or, possibly even worse, fear of a house that they’d lived in for a few weeks as children. Still, he thinks as he drifts into sleep, maybe Nell will feel better in the morning after an uneventful night.

He feels like he’s barely been asleep for a minute when he’s awoken to the sound of his own name and his words are proven false. “Steve,” comes Nell’s voice again, quiet but insistent, and he opens his eyes to see her sitting up in bed, pressed against the headboard, her eyes darting around the room as if trying to see all of it at once.

“What, what’s going on?” he asks.

“The lights keep flickering,” she says shakily. “And I just heard footsteps.”

“I’m sure it’s-” he begins, but is interrupted as the lamp beside him goes out again and they’re both cast in darkness. “-Nothing,” he finishes lamely, and hears Nell’s panicked breath from a few feet away. “It’s probably faulty wiring,” he explains. “Or the breaker tripped.”

They sit in the dark for a few moments as their eyes slowly adjust, and Steven reaches across the nightstand for his phone, fumbling with the settings until the flashlight is turned on. “See?” he says, casting the light around the room. “No ghosts.”

Again right as he speaks, as if the building itself is intent on making him look stupid in front of his little sister, they’re both frozen in silence as they hear what sounds like shuffling footsteps outside. Steven looks at Nell, anxious despite himself, and her wide blue eyes meet his in the dark as the footsteps continue, sounding as if they pass by their door and continue down the sidewalk. “Probably kids,” Steven says, but his voice betrays him, coming out as barely above a whisper. “Or one of the people we talked to today trying to scare us.”

Resolving to not look scared in front of Nell, Steve decides to prove himself correct. “I’ll go out and see who it is,” he says, forcing his voice a little louder this time. “And I’ll check to see if the power is on in the lobby. I want to see if the whole building is out.”

“Steve,” Nell says, the fear audible in her voice. “I don’t think-”

Her fear strengthens him, and, determined now, he hands her his phone for the light and grabs a backup flashlight from his bag, switching it on. “I’ll be right back,” he says. “Shout if you need me.”

“Steve,” she says again, but he’s already slipped into his shoes, and he grabs the master key from the dresser and makes his way outside without another word.

He looks both ways as the door shuts behind him, casting his flashlight around for any sign of other people. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he heads left towards the lobby - the footsteps had sounded like they were heading in this direction anyway, so he could hopefully accomplish both of his objectives quickly and get back to bed.

He reaches the lobby without incident and without catching sight of anyone, and unlocks the door. He reaches for the light switch on the wall, but despite clicking it up, the lights remain steadily dark. “Fother mucker,” he says quietly, and as he turns to leave again, his flashlight catches briefly on an odd shape across the room and he does a double-take, swinging the light back around to see what it was.

God, he wishes he hadn’t.

The woman - the creature - is grotesque. Gray skin barely clings to the bones beneath it, rotted fully away in some areas. Her dark hair is matted and knotted, hanging from her scalp in twisted waves, and her mouth and chin are stained. Steven looks up at her eyes, the irises a faded grey color, and as soon as their eyes meet, the ghoul lets out an ear-splitting scream.

The sound shocks Steven into action, and he yells, stumbling backwards and knocking into the door handle, feeling it jab into his spine, and he grabs for it behind his back, not letting the creature out of his sight. As he gets the door open, his palm sliding on the knob, the woman moves too, faster than he can, and flies straight across the room towards him. 

He practically falls backwards out of the room and slams the door shut, scrabbling to stay upright, and runs as fast as he can down the sidewalk, his lungs screaming, turning back as he hears the creaking of the door behind him and looks just long enough to see her head turn to look at him in the doorway.

He reaches room 6 and pulls on the handle, but it doesn’t budge, and he yanks again, banging on the door, yelling Nell’s name as loud as he can. “Steve?!” comes her voice on the other side, and he hears her at the other side of the door as well. Both of them desperately trying to get the door unlocked, he risks a glance to his right and sees that the Thing is twenty, fifteen, ten feet away, and finally there's a click and the door opens and he feels something sharp stab into the skin on his side like claws, tearing his shirt with an audible rip, and he throws himself inside, slamming and locking the door behind him. Outside, the being screams again, and Steven grabs Nell and they move together as fast as possible to the far wall, turning to face the door as loud banging knocks come from the other side, punctuated by a third scream, their shaking flashlights illuminating the wooden door as it shakes under the pressure.

This is what it feels like, Steven thinks, fear gripping his chest and paralyzing his body, eyes frozen wide, fixed on the door, his hand holding tightly onto his sister’s. Nellie, this is what it feels like to have someone believe you.


End file.
